Unit 4 - Feminism and Multiculturalism

UNIT 4: Two very useful BBC radio 4 broadcasts

FEMINISM

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most important events of the 20th century - the rise of Feminism and the subsequent empowerment of women. What have been the most important and lasting changes for women in the last 100 years and what is there still left to achieve? Are the biological differences between men and women insuperable? Dr Helena Cronin from the London School of Economics, Dr Germaine Greer whose book The Female Eunuch is credited with changing the lives of a generation of women Dr Helena Cronin, Co-director of the Centre for the Philosophy of the Natural and Social Sciences, London School of Economics

MULTICULTURALISM

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss multiculturalism. The divisions between people provoked and exploited because of differences in religion, culture, nationality and race seem to beset the planet the more information technology promises globalisation. A recent estimate put the figure of people living in a country other than the one of their birth at 80 million. Does this mean that, amongst these eighty million people, their country of origin, their sense of self, and their cultural history are no longer as significant as they were? And how are those eighty million people and their descendants accommodated in the country to which they have moved - do their lives exemplify the success of multicultural policies or are they subject to racism? Is it possible to define how attitudes to race and identity have changed this century, given its vast shifts of population, cultures and peoples?
With Stuart Hall, former Professor of Sociology, Open University and Avtar Brah, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Birkbeck College, London Univerity